


i put this heavy heart in you

by mayfriend



Series: I Heard A Rumour [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Body Dysphoria, Canonical Child Abuse, Death in Childbirth, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Like... so much angst, Luther-centric, Minor Character Death, Panic Attacks, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Pseudo-Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Whatever Allison and Luther are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend
Summary: Luther is a good son. It isn’t until Allison tells her Rumour that he realises he never actually thought about whether or not Dad is a good father.





	i put this heavy heart in you

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two! 
> 
> I just want to say I was honestly blown away by the response to _your father's gone below_ \- I can't remember the last time I got such an incredible reception for a fic, so I want to thank all of you who left kudos, bookmarked and commented, and to let you know that the whole reason I found the motivation and was able to update the series so quickly is because of your wonderful feedback.
> 
> I thought I was going to do Vanya next, but then Luther came along and... I did not do that. I think I'm going to do a fic for each of the seven kids, but that's just a rough idea right now. If you have any suggestions/ideas of what you think would change, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments!

He has always been a good son, the best son. Number One. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Was he One because he was named such, or was he named such because he was One? How long is a piece of string?

(Twelve years. Twenty-nine years. He’ll never, never know.)

He ate his greens and paid attention in lessons and threw weights that made his chubby little arms shake with exertion just because Dad wanted him to. He kept his back straight at mealtimes and never talked back and drunk every single gross protein shake Dad wanted him to without complaint.

Sometimes, he didn’t want to.

But he was Number One, Dad chose him to be first, to be The Leader, and Luther couldn’t bear to let him down. Even when his whole body ached. Even when his vision blurred. Even when he had to swallow down his own sick when Dad made him do an extra lap, throw an extra meter, eat until his stomach rebelled, and eat some more. He’s good, he’s good, he’s _good._

Sometimes, he wanted to cry like Six, wanted to throw a tantrum like Three, wanted to bite like Two or sulk like Four. Whenever he gets these urges - these wayward urges that One is supposed to be better than - he pinches himself, traps a bit of too-soft skin that isn’t hard muscle, that isn’t the way it should be, and _squeezes_. The pain distracts him from the bad thoughts, from the resentment, from everything but the ache and the pressure.

One never gets undressed in front of the others. He doesn’t want them to ask about the tiny blue-black-yellow bruises that dot down his sides, on his soft underarms, or the flesh of his thighs. His last nanny - he can’t remember her name, it was so long ago, like a life that had happened to someone else - had gone to Dad when she saw the first few, and was dismissed for her trouble. One knew that meant he was doing the right thing, that Father approved, that he was doing good, even if sometimes he can still hear his nanny’s horrified gasp when he undresses.

By twelve, One is Luther and Luther only has a couple bruises left. The bad thoughts come less often, and when they do, it’s so much easier to make them go away. (He’s stronger now, too, strong enough so that sometimes when he pinches himself he breaks the skin. He never lets himself cry when it hurts. He’s stronger than that.) He’s a good son. He’s the _best_ son.

Dad tells him so, in his own way, when they sit in front of the big tree in the courtyard and he tells Luther that he needs to keep an eye on Two, that Four is slacking, that Five needs to follow instructions better instead of coming up with his own solutions. They’ve got to be a unit, Luther knows, and Dad is telling him that he trusts Luther to make them one, even if he doesn’t use the words.

Luther is a good son. It isn’t until Allison tells her Rumour that he realises he never actually thought about whether or not Dad is a good father.

* * *

It’s difficult to go back in his memory, and unpick the differences between what he wanted to have been, and what was. He isn’t even sure he wants to, but he’s Number One, and that’s his job - to be first, to be right, to lead by example. To walk into the fire first so that the others know it’s okay to burn. Nobody respects a leader who won’t put himself at the head of the charge.

In the end, it comes down to this: Luther had wanted his father to love him. That is all he has wanted, for ever. He has wanted other things (and he thinks everyone knows what they are) and he will want more (he will always, always want her, in any way he can), but they are- not fleeting, or temporary, or impermanent- but… Dad’s loopy handwriting is seared into his heart, branded on his skin, woven through his mind on repeat.

(Will Dad approve? Will Dad think he did the right thing? Will Dad still want him?)

Oh. Well, that’s… Luther thinks there might be something a little wrong with him after all.

He doesn’t know much about other families - other fathers - but since Allison’s Rumour, he knows more than he ever did before. They were finally allowed to buy a television, and watch sitcoms and cartoons, and the dads in those shows didn’t seem to- to be-

Dad isn’t cruel. He’s not. But he’s never hugged any of them, not like the dads on Disney channel hug their children. If any of them talked back to him like the kids on those programs did, or went behind their back with harebrained schemes or rolled their eyes when he spoke or made jokes at his expense-

The very thought makes his mouth go dry, and he dimly identifies the emotion running through him as fear.

Oh. _Oh_. Luther thought he wasn’t afraid of his father. But Luther’s found he thinks a lot of things that aren’t true. Luther thought his father loved him, loved all of them. Luther thought that if he was good enough, loyal enough, strong enough, that one day he would show it. Luther thought that he could hold this whole messy family together with his will alone, and unlike his arms, that has never really been of any outstanding strength.

And it hurts - very little hurts Luther, near-invulnerability coming part in parcel with his super strength - and it hurts and it _hurts_. He has never been so terribly wounded in his life, and yet there is no blood, no bone, no cut. He is bleeding, bleeding, and he doesn’t know where from except that it is somewhere deep inside.

(He took forever to learn that other people feel things sharper and harder than him, that what for him would be a pat would for others be a punch. Dad made him practice with metal rods, then wooden sculptures, then glass baubles, made him squeeze until they bent, shattered, broke, until he knew what was appropriate force and what could tear a person apart.)

(He is being torn apart.)

He’s never broken a bone, but his siblings have. It’s unsurprising, looking at their childhood. Depending on how bad the break is, sometimes they’ll shout out in pain. He knows that they’ve all cried a little, even Five, who jumped away before any of them could get a good look at his crumbling expression.

Luther’s crying now. Luther’s hurting now. He knows human anatomy better than most pre-med students, taught where to hit and where to crush and where to tear, and the pain pulsing in the middle of his chest makes no _sense._ If it was his ribs they’d hurt on one side or the other, his heart and it’d be higher and a little to the left, he wouldn’t be able to breathe if it was his lungs-

It takes him forty minutes or thereabout to gain some measure of control over himself, and still he is breaking. He is the very first glass vase pressed into his chubby fingers, in pieces on the floor. He’s all out of tears and his head is throbbing with exhaustion and dehydration, and there’s still this acute _ache_ that hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before. He doesn’t go down to dinner when Grace calls, knowing his eyes are red and sore and puffy, and worse yet a dead giveaway, and sits on his bed like a prisoner awaiting execution, his shoulders lined with lead.

He doesn’t know what Dad’ll do. He almost wants to know. He can’t bear to know. He’s never put a foot out of line before today, never even considered it, but here he is as the seconds are turning into moments and the moments into minutes, and despite the desperation thrumming through his limbs to _go go go,_ the hope that if he lies about not hearing he might get out alright, that if he runs he might be forgiven - he just… doesn’t. He sits. He waits, his heart a thundering tattoo.

Luther wants Dad to love him, he always has. And now he knows that he never did. He thinks he understands now, at least better than he did before, why Allison used her power on Dad. He thinks he might even have done the same, if he hadn’t been so consumed by this compulsion to be The Good Son, if he had seen, if he had understood. But there is an undeniable sense of loss; loss of the illusion Luther has been living under, loss of a father or at least the impression of one, and a something else that Luther hadn’t even known he’d had until it was gone. Before, he had faith in Dad, in his vision for the future, belief in the rightness of his actions and certainty that this was his purpose. Now, he is questioning everything he ever thought and ever was, and he’s coming apart at the seams.

He keeps coming back to the fact that Dad never meant it. That it didn’t matter that Luther did everything he wanted, followed every order, listened to every lecture… it didn’t _matter._ Did any of it? Ever since he was little, Luther’s been told that one day he’s going to save the world, him and his family, him and his team. Dad’s always told him that he’s got a job to do, that he’s going to go out and he’s going to fight and he might fall. And for what? For what? For one old man who had never loved him? For a world he wasn’t even allowed to be a part of? For his siblings, who he’s been told over and over that he can’t get too close to, can’t love too much, because they are soldiers, and soldiers _die_.

On Disney channel, kids Luther’s age get to follow their dreams, no matter how unlikely or unrealistic - to sing, to dance, to act, to paint. Luther gets the promise of certain death and pain, and that’s all. That’s what superhero means, at the end of the day. It’s a kid’s story but they’re made of flesh and bone, not paper and ink, and they will _die._ That’s it; that’s all. It’s not fair and it’s not right and he can’t believe that he ever- that he would have just _stayed_ , because he would have, he would have stayed until he died or worse, until one of the others died, perhaps beyond, beyond even death. Klaus sees ghosts, so he knows for sure there is something after. Perhaps he would have stayed, stuck in this hollow house even when his ashes were lost on the wind.

Yes, ashes. Luther knows that if he dies, he’ll burn.

He knows that Dad has got a folder filled with contingency plans for the academy, every contingency plan, and Luther once read a little over his shoulder without meaning to. If any of them die in action - Dad had crossed out the _if,_ and Luther doesn’t know what that means anymore, if it means they won’t be going out to fight or if he _knows_ one of them will die on a mission sooner or later - they’re to be cremated. Private funeral. A statue cast in bronze. It’s just another checkbox, another station on a pre-planned route.

(It doesn’t need to be said that Disney channel fathers don’t pre-plan their children’s funerals.)

The door opens, and his heart leaps for a split second of anxiety and anticipation. It’s not Dad. Instead, Pogo stands in the doorway, his large dark eyes hidden by his half-moon spectacles. Luther stares at him, blank. He doesn’t think he could move his face if he wanted to, his features cast in (bronze) an expressionless mask.

“Master Luther,” Pogo says, “won’t you come down to dinner?”

 _No!_ Luther wants to shout. He wants to scream and fight and sulk and hit. He wants to be childish and stupid and silly and selfish. He wants to make Dad come up here, wants to make him face him, wants to demand answers and satisfaction until he’s blue in the face. He doesn’t even know he’s pinching himself before the familiar sharp ache is blooming on his thigh, not quite healed from the last time, the whole thing instinct now. He thinks about his old nanny, whose name he can’t remember, whose gasp has stayed with him even when her face has not . She’d known it was wrong, and so had Dad. And Dad had let it carry on. Had let it all carry on, would have let it carry on forever without Allison and her Rumour.

He wanted his dad to love him. He could have borne all this, as wrong and fucked up and impossible as it was, if his Dad had just loved him. But if Dad had loved him, he wouldn’t have done this to him, to any of them. If Dad had loved them, had ever been prepared to love them, then he would have given them names. If Dad had ever loved them, he wouldn’t have bought them like they were items instead of babies. If Dad had ever, ever, ever loved them-

“Alright,” he says, and stands up just to make his head quiet down. He’s got to set an example, he thinks. Then- he thinks he shouldn’t _have_ to set an example. He’s just a kid. He’s just a _kid,_ they’re all just kids. They should be going to school and doing homework about physics and English and maths instead of how best to break out of a chokehold, instead of running until their bodies fail, instead of only leaving this fucking house when they go to risk their lives. Luther wants to be on a football team, maybe, or join a chess club, go to cinema, play in a park. He wants it for all of them. He wants. He wants. He _wants._ He wants not to think about the pros and cons of every decision, wants not to evaluate every room he walks into for possible exits, wants to _live._

He’s opened up Pandora’s Box now, and it’s all bursting free after years and years of swallowing it down. He wishes he could purge himself of everything about him that Dad has instilled into him, but then he thinks he would just be a blank slate.

Dad did this to him, put the weight of the others onto his shoulders, even though it wasn’t fair, even though it was too much, and even though Luther knows these things, he knows a part of him will always be Number One. He’s got a name now, but his birth certificate still has him listed with a decimal. He’s got a father now - not a Disney channel father, not one who will watch him follow his dreams and support him all the way and hug him when he cries - but Allison’s Rumour did give him a father. Not one won over with demonstrations of loyalty and fidelity and obedience, but one tricked and caught and captured. A father unwilling, a father unfree, but a father. A father who might, possibly, care if he lives or dies.

He’s got a family now, a family found instead of a family forced (except does he? _Does he?_ He knows that Dad certainly isn’t acting of his own free will), and that’s something. That’s something. He has to believe it’s something or he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Luther walks down to dinner, not looking at Pogo, not once. He takes his seat, ignores his sibling’s stares, and eats even though it tastes like nothing, like ash and dust and char, even though he knows Mom will have made it perfectly, just like she does everything else. Under the table, someone nudges his foot.

He looks up at Allison, sitting across from him. There’s a lump in his throat, and he doesn’t know if he could say anything if he tried, or if all this confused vitriol would come streaming out like a tidal wave.

She understands. She always understands. Allison reaches across the table, and takes his hand in hers. “It’ll be okay,” she says quietly, even though they’re allowed to speak at mealtimes now, and Luther decides to believe her. Because it’s Allison. Because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he can’t.

* * *

Before he was One, he was a baby born to a spinster school teacher in England. She’d sat down behind her desk to grade her Year 9’s chemistry tests, and between _Shakira F’s_ paper (a solid B plus, she really had worked hard) and _Rob H’s_ (he had really not) her water had broken. She’d been entirely alone for the entire labour, having stayed in the otherwise empty science block to finish her marking, and the ambulance she managed to call in between her contractions only arrived after the birth of her baby boy. He was a large baby, and he’d torn his way out of her like babies so often do, but a little more forcefully than was normal, leaving her bleeding out on the lab’s shiny floor.

Miss Parsons had once wanted children, but had never quite found the right partner. She’d settled a long time ago for the hundreds of teens that she taught over thirty years; her office was full of thank you cards and drawings from them, collected over a long and satisfying career. She’d been delirious when the paramedics put the miracle in her arms, but the blood loss didn’t make her hold on him any weaker. Like her son, she was strong, in more ways than one. Of the forty-three women around the world who became suddenly pregnant on October 1st 1989, she was one of the few who would have kept the child.

“A gift,” she breathes, staring into his large blue eyes, tears of exhaustion and elation streaking down her round cheeks, “A gift… from God…”

(If Catherine Parsons had lived, she would have called the boy Matthew.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the absolutely gorgeous [Heirloom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avniWHc0zVM) by Sleeping At Last, the lyrics of which fit Luther scarily well. 
> 
>  
> 
> _When the scale tipped,_  
>  _When you inherited_  
>  _A fight that you were born to lose._  
>  _It's not your fault,_  
>  _No, it's not your fault,_  
>  _I put this heavy heart in you._
> 
> _You are so much more than your father's son._  
>  _You are so much more than the wars you've won._  
>  _You are so much more than your father's son._  
>  _You are so much more than what I've become._
> 
>  
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [mayfriend](http://mayfriend.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
